Twilit Love
by Poetgirl616
Summary: Bella shows up in Forks and from day one keeps secrets. Many will be revealed in the second installment to the Tainted Love Trilogy. Story better than summary I promise! On hold
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One Hello and Goodbye

My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-seven degrees in Phoenix and I was wearing my usual outfit of black long sleeve v-neck dress shirt with black silk dress pants. The kind the female twenty-something teachers wear that swishes around their legs when they walk. My outfit was suitable for the next place I would inhabit.

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America. It was from this town and its gloomy shade that she escaped with me when I was a few months old. It was in this town that I'd been forced to spend one month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I'd told my mother I refused to go to Forks one more day. I would never go there again. Plans change. These past three summers, my dad, Charles, vacationed with me in California for a few weeks instead.

It was to Forks that I now exiled myself—an action that I took with many feelings; horror, sadness, anxiety, and loneliness. I detested Forks.

I used to love Phoenix. I had loved the sun and the blistering heat. I once loved the vigorous sprawling city.

"Bella," my mom said to me—the last of a thousand times—before I boarded the plane. "You don't have to do this."

My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. I hardly ever laughed anymore. I felt a spasm of panic as I stared into her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic mother to fend for herself? Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call, when she got lost but . . . How could I stay?

"Yes I do. I _have_ to do this. I _want_ to go." I lied about the last part.

"Tell Charles I said hi."

"I will."

"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want—I'll come right back as soon as you need me."

But I could see the sacrifice behind her eyes as well as feel my own.

"Don't worry about me," I urged. "I'll be great. I love you, Mom."

She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I boarded the plane, and she was gone. I could breathe now. I no longer had to pretend that I was traveling to a tropical paradise instead of a gloomy nightmare.

It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back to Forks. Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charles, though, I was a little worried about.

Charles had been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to stay with some degree of permanence. He'd already registered me for high school and was going to help buy a car.

But it was sure to be awkward with Charles, maybe even downright painful. Neither of us were conversational, and I didn't know what there was to say regardless. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision—like my mother before me, I hadn't made a secret of my distaste for Forks. And I didn't flaunt my reasons for making my decision. I would never talk about those, not even to my father.

When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen—I didn't see it as anything.

Charles was waiting for with the cruiser. This I was expecting Charles is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind building a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town, especially in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.

Charles gave me an awkward one-armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane.

"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically steadied me. "You've changed since I saw you last. How's Renée?"

"Mom's fine. It's good to see you too, Dad." I wasn't allowed to call him Charles to his face.

I had only a few bags. Some of my clothes were too permeable for Washington and the other five percent that weren't too permeable and weren't black were clothes that carried painful memories. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of the cruiser.

"Remember when we were discussing cars?" He asked as we strapped in.

"Yes. Did you find one?" I was suspicious of why he would bring it up.

"It's a truck, a Chevy."

"Where did you find it?"

"Do you remember my old fishing partner Billy Black from La Push?" La Push was the Indian reservation on the coast. Billy was Charles' best friend and I couldn't place the name to a face.

"Not really, no."

Billy being Charles' fishing partner during the summer would be the reason why I didn't remember him. I was good at blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory.

"He's in a wheelchair now and he can't drive so he offered to sell his truck to me cheap."

"How cheap is cheap?" I wasn't able to negotiate prices very much with the money I had.

"Well, Bella I already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift." Charles peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.

"You didn't have to do that, dad. I was going to buy myself a car."

"I don't mind. I want you to be here." He concentrated on the road intensely as he said this. Charles was never comfortable expressing his emotions.

I was not comfortable discussing being happy here at all so I stared straight ahead as I responded. "That was really nice of you, dad. Thanks." I wasn't going to mention out loud that being happy in Forks would be impossible.

There was a slight silence.

"What year is the truck?" I finally decided to ask. I could see him cringe a little so I suspected this was a question he hoped I wouldn't ask.

"Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine—it's only a few years old, really."

I hoped he didn't think I would give up that easily. "When did he buy it?"

"He bought it in 1984. At last, I think he did."

"Was it new?"

"No. It was new in the early sixties—or late fifties at the earliest." He admitted sheepishly.

"Dad, I don't know anything about cars. I wouldn't know how to fix it if anything went wrong and I definitely cannot afford a mechanic."

"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."

The thing, I thought to myself . . . it had possibility—as a nickname, at the very least.

We exchanged a few comments on the weather and that was it conversation wise. I stared out the window thinking about nothing in particular. Letting my thoughts wander to mom and Phil. What would they be doing right now? Would they be on their way to Florida already?

I was soon distracted by the surroundings. Everything was green, the very color I detested; the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches handing with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down from the trees greenly.

It was too green—like an alien planet.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1 part 2

It was too green—like an alien planet.

Eventually we made it to Charles'. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house he had bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only days their marriage had—the early ones. There parked in front of the house that had never changed, was my new—well, new to _me_ anyway—truck. It was a faded red color, with big rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I was secretly worried Charles would attempt to get an Explorer, or a Mercedes or something like that. I didn't know if the truck would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus it was one of those solid iron affairs that never damage—the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.

"Whoa, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow will be just a little less horrific I wouldn't be faced with the choice of walking two miles to school in the rain or catching a ride in the Chiefs' cruiser.

"I'm glad you like it," Charles said gruffly, embarrassed again.

It only took one trip to get all my luggage upstairs. I received the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floors, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the windows—were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charles had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a second hand computer with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner. I would have to redecorate once I earn enough money.

There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charles. I was trying not to dwell on that fact.

One of the best things about Charles is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sleeting rain and let a few tears escape. I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that until bedtime when I would have to think about the coming morning.

Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven—now fifty-eight—students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone in Phoenix. All of the kids here had grown up together—their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.

Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could avoid many questions. Why aren't you tan? Why are you so pale? Why aren't you blonde? Why don't you play sports? Why do you hate sports?

No one had to know anything but the basics. Name, appearance, old state, and what I thought about living here. As I looked at myself I know that physically I'd never fit anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond—a volleyball player, or a cheerleader perhaps—all of the things that come with living in the valley of the sun.

Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete, I didn't have the necessary hand eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself—and harming both myself and anyone who stood too close.

When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dressing, I took my bag of the bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the long day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but I already looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty—it was very clear, almost translucent-looking—but it all depended on color. I had no color here. Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in, and if I couldn't find a niche in a school with over three thousand people, what were my chances here?

I didn't relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth is that I don't relate well to people period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.

But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be the beginning.

I unzipped my third bad and pulled out my jewelry box, setting it on my dresser. I knew what lay inside the second drawer under the false bottom and I knew that I would, no, _could_ never lay eyes on the contents ever again. The constant _whoosh_ing of the rain and wind across the rood wouldn't fade away as the hours went by.

Painfully memories enveloped me as I reached for the syringe on my bedside table and proceeded to inject myself. I lay down under the blankets letting myself cry without restraint, waiting for sleep to come. Dreamless sleep greeted me when sleep finally came.

Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning and I could feel the claustrophobic creeping on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage.

I showered quickly, checking my arm to be sure no blood or trace of the contents of my syringe remained before stepping out and getting dressed.

Breakfast with Charles was a quiet event. After I took my pills, secretly stashed in the false bottom of the top drawer, I washed the dishes. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. Charles left first, off to police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of three non-matching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First was a wedding picture of Charles and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by a procession of my school pictures up to last years'. Those were embarrassing to look at—I would have to see what I could do to get Charles to put them somewhere else . . . at least while I'm living here.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 1 part 3

Breakfast with Charles was a quiet event. After I took my pills, secretly stashed in the false bottom of the top drawer, I washed the dishes. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. Charles left first, off to police station that was his wife and family. After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of three non-matching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First was a wedding picture of Charles and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by a procession of my school pictures up to last years'. Those were embarrassing to look at—I would have to see what I could do to get Charles to put them somewhere else, at least while I'm living here.

It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charles had never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable.

I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house anymore. I donned my jacket—which had the feel of a biohazard suit—and headed out into the rain.

It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key under the eave by the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn't pause and admire my truck again like I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair underneath my hood.

Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Billy or Charles had obviously cleaned it up, but the tan holstered seats still smelled faintly at tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. The antique radio worked, a plus that I hadn't expected.

Finding the school wasn't difficult, though I'd never been there before. The school was, like most other things, just off the highway. It was not obvious that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be Forks High School, made me stop. It looked like a collection of matching houses, built with maroon covered bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I couldn't see its size at first. Where was the feeling of institution? I wondered nostalgically. Where were the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?

I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading FRONT OFFICE. No one else had parked there, so I was sure it was off-limits, but I decided I would get directions inside instead of circling around in the rain like an idiot. I stepped unwillingly out of the toasty truck cab and strolled down a little stone path lined with dark hedges. I took a deep breath before opening the door.

Inside, it was brightly lit and warmer than I had hoped. The office was small; a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, a big clock ticking loudly. Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there wasn't enough greenery outside. The room was cut in half by a long counter cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to its front. There were three desks behind the counter, one of which was manned by a large, red-haired woman wearing glasses. She wore a purple t-shirt, which immediately made me feel overdressed.

The red-haired woman looked up. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Isabella S—Swan," I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light her eyes. I was expected a topic of gossip no doubt. Daughter of the Chief's flighty ex-wife come home at last.

"Of course," she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk until she found the ones she was looking for. "I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school." She brought several sheets to the counter to show me.

She went through all of my classes with me, highlighting the best route to each on the map with a different color, and gave me a slip to have each of the teachers sign it, which meant I was supposed to bring it back to the office at the end of the day. She hoped, like Charles, that I would like (enjoy?) living in Forks. I smiled at her as convincingly as I could, while thinking, _yeah right_!

When I walked back out to my Chevy, other students were beginning to arrive. I drove around the school behind a little beat up Dodge, following the line of traffic to a decent-sized parking lot. I was glad to see that most of the cars were older like mine, nothing flashy. In Phoenix I'd lived in one of the few lower-income neighborhoods that had been included in the Paradise Valley District. It had been common to see a new Mercedes or Porsche in the student lot. The nicest car here was a silver Volvo, and it definitely stood out. I cut the engine as soon as I was in a slot, so the thunderous volume wouldn't draw unwanted, meaning any, attention to me.

I gazed at the map in the truck, attempting to memorize it now; hopefully I wouldn't have to stroll down the halls with it stuck in front of my nose all day. I stuffed all of my things into my bag, slung the strap over my shoulder, and sucked in a huge breath. _I can do this_, I lied to myself feebly. No _one is going to bite me_. I finally exhaled and stepped out of the truck.

I kept my face hidden in my hood as I followed the line of bodies to the sidewalk, crowded with teenagers. My plain back jacket didn't stand out, I noticed with great relief.

Once I had maneuvered around the cafeteria building three was impossible not to see. A large black "3" was painted on a white square on the east corner. I felt my breathing gradually creeping toward hyperventilation as I approached the door. I tried out holding my breath as I followed two unisex raincoats through the door.

The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. I thought it would be suspicious not to follow their lead so I copied them. They were two girl, one a porcelain-colored blonde the other also pale, but with light brown hair. At least my skin wouldn't be a stand out here.

I took the slip up to the teacher, a tall, building man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked at me when he saw my name—not the response I had hoped for—and of course it made me feel like a science experiment when the class stared at me. But at least he sent me to the back without introducing me to the class. It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me in the back, but somehow they managed. I kept my eyes on the reading list in front of me. It was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Faulkner. I'd already read everything on the list at least twice. That was comforting . . . and boring. I let my mind wander as I went over the list. I wondered if my mom would send me my folder of old essays or if she would refuse because she thought that was cheating. I went through several different arguments with her in my head while the teacher droned on.


End file.
